On Saturday, February 22, 2003 at 7:42:15 PM UTC-6, Bill Bryant wrote:

I was a long-time student of Claude Gordon in the 70s. During a recent illness I decided to see what was being said about him on Internet
trumpet forums. I'm amazed and appalled.

Time won't allow me to clear up every misconception, of course, but in
honor of a tremendous teacher and noble man I want to clear up at
least a few of the worst.

1. Claude was not a high note teacher. He's been labeled this way
probably because most trumpeters flip through his Systematic Approach
book, see the arpeggios, and assume that Claude was just another
"Double High C in 37 Weeks" kind of guy, a gimmick, a quick way to get yourself screaming. Nothing could be further from the truth. Claude
wasn't a high note teacher; he was a trumpet teacher. Yes, he taught a
person the full, practical range of the horn, and yes, he had a
particular approach to helping someone expand into new registers. But
this was a small fraction of what he taught. A very small fraction.
Claude hated, and I mean HATED, anything that even slightly smelled
like a secret method or a get-high-notes-fast kind of thing.
2. Claude was not a pedal tone freak. Yes, Claude believed that the
proper, controlled use of pedal tones (flexibly, easily connected to
the rest of one's playing register) improved vibrations, improved
endurance, helped with agility, etc., but again, the vast part of my
work with Claude had absolutely nothing to do with pedals.
3. Claude wasn't as dogmatic about embouchure as some assume. To the contrary, about the only thing he ever said to me about it was that
most people needed to have more top lip in the mouthpiece than bottom.
I still have five or six trumpet books I took to my lessons with him,
and on every page are three words Claude put there with a red stamp:
FORGET THE LIP. When it came to the whole embouchure thing Claude
believed that the right kind of practice over an extended period of
time would help a person's embouchure set itself optimally.
Occasionally he would change a new student's embouchure if he believed
it was too far off ever to adjust itself with proper practice, but
most of the time he left embouchure alone.
4. Claude wasn't as dogmatic about KTM tonguing as some have stated,
at least not when I was studying with him in the 70s. Some of his best students, Bob O'Donnell for example, never adopted it, and that was
just fine with Claude. He had me do a lot of it, but only as one of
the many models I did on virtually everything I practiced. He never
made me change to using it as my main approach to tonguing. He tongued
this way himself, and learned this from Clarke, who did it this way
too, but he never forced me to do it exclusively. Today I can use
either KTM or regular single tonguing with about equal facility
according to what seems best in a given musical passage (sort of like choosing between single and double tonguing).

Now I want to say what I believe was at the heart of Gordon's genius
as a teacher. Claude believed the secret to reaching one's full
potential as a trumpet player was to be found in developing a
long-term, systematic approach to practice: how to practice, what to practice, when to practice it. I have two legal-sized ringed binders
full of lesson plans that gave me detailed instructions about exactly
what to practice, how to practice it, how much to practice it, and in
what order to practice it. I wish I could show everyone the way these hundreds of pages take a person incrementally through book after book, emphasizing one thing the first time through, another the next. I wish
I could show you the way Claude systematically approached the study of
Gatti, St. Jacome, Arban, Irons, Smith, Colin, Staigers, Clarke, etc.

Under Claude I practiced every study in St. Jacome several times using
only K tonguing. Does that sound like the kind of thing a "high note"
teacher would have his students do? Under Claude, as per his
instructions regarding which lines to practice each day, I worked my
way through the Jerry Coker jazz patterns book and, for awhile, even
had a required cut from a required Jamie Aebersold Album to play
changes with. "Bill, if you're going to learn to hold down the jazz
chair in a big band, you need to approach it systematically. You're
getting bogged down in one key. You need to approach your jazz playing
the same way we approached Arban. Here, let me put your Aebersold
stuff into your lessons so you'll know when to practice it, exactly
how much of it to practice, and how much time to spend on it. Then
we'll work you through it bit by bit, come back through it a second
time and a third, and pretty soon you'll know all twelve keys equally
well when it comes to playing through jazz changes." Those weren't his
exact words, but close enough. And again, is this a "high note"
teacher?

So much more could be said but I haven't the time. Perhaps the thing I appreciate most about Claude's teaching method was that it gave me
tremendous consistency. No, I never became a world-class monster, but
during my years dedicated to trumpet playing (I'm a school teacher
now) I completely overcame the on again-off again stuff that plagues
so many players. I knew what I could do as a player from day to day
because it was the same from day to day; contractors knew what to
expect from me day to day because I didn't have good days and bad
days. I just had my best, such as it was, the same every day.

I don't know if Claude's approach to high register development is the
best for everybody (it was fine for me, but other approaches may have
worked for me too). What I do believe is that his approach to
consistently, incrementally improving every aspect of one's playing in tandem, at one's own best pace, has never been equaled.

A hint of this all-around incremental approach to every aspect of
playing can be found in Systematic Approach itself, if a student buys
all the supplemental books, lays them on a table and studies carefully
how Claude takes a student week by week through each of them along
with his own things. But this is a mere shadow compared to having the
man write customized weekly lessons for you yourself.

If you have any questions about the real Claude Gordon, not the
Internet caricature, please feel free to contact me at
[email protected].

P.S. I had/have some strong disagreements with Gordon about a couple
of things. Perhaps I'll discuss them here at a later date if anybody
has an interest.

In know this is an old discussion, but I just discovered it. I just want to state that I read and agree with everything Bill Bryant wrote in his original post here. I studied with Claude for sixteen years, from January 1979 until shortly before his
death. Claude took me through just about every method book, technical studies book, etude book and flexibility book ever published, including several that had been out of print for years even back then (he had us take his originals of these books to the
local copy shop to make our own copies of the exercises).

The idea that Claude Gordon was just a "high note teacher" is preposterous. Anytime I started worrying and fretting about high notes, he'd say to me, "Don't worry about getting the high notes. High notes are INEVITABLE if you are practicing correctly -
they'll develop right along with the rest of the machine."

The only thing I respectfully disagree with Bill (and some others) about is his opinion that Claude was wrong in thinking anyone who practices correctly long enough can become a great player. As Claude did, and Herbert Clarke did before him, I too
believe that "what one man can do, so can another" as Clarke put it. Playing the trumpet does not demand extreme levels of strength or physical size (as does some athletic events). The extraordinary strength needed to play lead trumpet or principal
trumpet at a professional level is within the realm of attainment for any average person. The high levels of neuro-muscular coordination required are also within the developmental capabilities of any normal person, if he or she is willing to spend the
many years necessary to achieve the required levels (and practices the correct material correctly). Some will gain the knack of it sooner than others, but I really think any normal person can do it, assuming that person has the ability to differentiate
between pitches at a fine level.

Best wishes to all,

John Mohan

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